The thesis is focused on the contemporary iteration of the Northern Irish republican armed struggle, which has been active since the time of the peace process in the late 1990s. Despite being characterised by a lower intensity than the armed conflict that took place between 1969 and 1998, the ongoing campaign of political violence is still lethal, with periodic instances of violence directed against both entities if the state and those understood to be threatening the nationalist communities. The ...

The thesis is focused on the contemporary iteration of the Northern Irish republican armed struggle, which has been active since the time of the peace process in the late 1990s. Despite being characterised by a lower intensity than the armed conflict that took place between 1969 and 1998, the ongoing campaign of political violence is still lethal, with periodic instances of violence directed against both entities if the state and those understood to be threatening the nationalist communities. The presented doctoral thesis takes up the task of studying this armed struggle in a tripartite focus, by looking at the
emergence, maintenance, and legitimation thereof. This work is defined by its exploratión of the interwoven nature of the different forms of political violence that makes up the armed struggle, with this most evident in the mutually constituting nature of the facilitating conditions for the existence of political violence. It is the first work to problematise this relationship and thus offers a novel understanding of the studied phenomena.